Would you believe....Ben Sheets?

[Jaylyn]

When you look at his years here and some of the teams that took the field behind him, we ought to have a ceremony and retire his jersey!

[Team Hoyt]

He had two good years.

[berniebrewer4life]

He had two good years.

 

that's just not true. While his last several years were injury filled, he was very good for the last 5 years he was here(which is what made his injuries so frustrating). He put up WHIPs of .983, 1.066, 1.094, 1.238 and 1.150.

 

The man had a career ERA of 3.72 and a WHIP of 1.201 for some of the worst teams in Brewers history.

[davego]

I'd give Ben a big cheer at the start of the game, then hope we pound him.

 

And Sheets had 5 real + years in Milwaukee on what we know were really, really bad teams. Some of us might forget how brutal the squad was his first 4 years.

[Team Hoyt]

I agree, good years when you look at statistics but if you put his statistics with the guy (s) that replaced him for the games he missed it would balloon his ERA, WHIP and all other statistical categories you can come up with.

 

I put a lot of stock in pitchers that can go out year after year and start 34 games and throw 200 plus innings.

 

"The man had a career ERA of 3.72 and a WHIP of 1.201 for some of the worst teams in Brewers history."

 

Cool, all you can say is he may have won more games with a contending team but as for ERA and WHIP I think they would be very comparable even if he would have played for a better team.

[afeter]

I put a lot of stock in pitchers that can go out year after year and start 34 games and throw 200 plus innings.

 

you should take stock of what sheets actually did when he was here.

GAMES STARTED

2002 34 (4th in NL)

2003 34 (3rd in NL)

2004 34 (5th in NL)

 

 

ben sheets is also on my short list of favorite brewers. olympic champ, hes a baseball guy--check out his kids names. Nasty stuff and great personality. works for me everytime.

[berniebrewer4life]

I agree, good years when you look at statistics but if you put his statistics with the guy (s) that replaced him for the games he missed it would balloon his ERA, WHIP and all other statistical categories you can come up with.

 

I'm not sure i completely follow you. Are you trying to say that his stats would have been worse if he wouldn't have been hurt, because he would have faced more teams?

[Team Hoyt]

I'm saying if you take his stats and combine those with the stats of the replacement for the games he missed your overall stats don't look good.

 

As for the 3 consecutive years with 34 starts the first 2 he had an ERA over 4. When he finally broke through as a top tier pitcher he couldn't stay on the field.

[dlk9s]

I think he's basically using the "health is a skill" argument and trying to say that because he was hurt, the Brewers had to use a worse pitcher to cover his missed starts. This combined "Ben Sheets" pitcher was worse than the genuine article, so the fact that Ben Sheets got hurt made him a worse pitcher, even if his stats when healthy were still excellent.

 

I know it doesn't make much sense - I had a lot of trouble even typing that. I think that's what Hoyt is trying to say, though.

 

EDIT: Yup, that's what he's saying. I was still figuring out how to word it while he replied.

[dlk9s]

I'm saying if you take his stats and combine those with the stats of the replacement for the games he missed your overall stats don't look good.

I've been trying to explain this to people for years. Ted Williams wasn't NEARLY as good as people make him out to be. All you have to do is combine the stats of his replacement for those years he missed in the military and you don't come close to a legendary hitter.

[Team Hoyt]

The combined overall stats between Sheets and the replacement (s) won't look good. See guys I'm looking at this from a team perspective here not individual stats. I say he is not helping his TEAM by missing those starts. You can praise him for his career stats but he was not helping his team with the 3 straight years missing 10 plus games. But hey we should retire his number, he was great.

[igor67]

Pitchers in general are rather fragile. Sheets was not notably more fragile than other starters. Given that he was the only starter of any value practically for a number of years we noticed every single bump and bruise and it felt worse, but we'd have gone through the same issue with pretty much any starter outside of those rare few who really can go pitch for half a dozen years and 200+ innings consecutively. So while health is a skill relative to other pitchers Sheets was not below average, so there is no reason to try and penalize his excellent performances by adding on a negative that would apply to almost every other starting pitcher.

[yoshii8]

Sheets was a tremendous talent and one of my favorite Brewers ever. I'm baffled by the amount of hate he gets from certain people. The man may have had some injury issues, but he always gave everything he had and was truly a pleasure to watch and listen to both on and off the field.

 

I'm glad to see him doing so well again w/ the Braves, and hope it continues into the playoffs. I really hope he gets a nice ovation from the Miller Park crowd if he pitches here.

[Team Hoyt]

Would Ben Sheets be on the top of your list to sign a long term contract? Even for that matter a 3 year deal?

 

If you do, you just got fired as a GM

[berniebrewer4life]

The combined overall stats between Sheets and the replacement (s) won't look good. See guys I'm looking at this from a team perspective here not individual stats. I say he is not helping his TEAM by missing those starts. You can praise him for his career stats but he was not helping his team with the 3 straight years missing 10 plus games. But hey we should retire his number, he was great.

 

I understand you are using health as a measurement for success. That's fine. I assume you put a lot of weight in that stat when saying sheets only had 2 good years. So how many starts does a pitcher need to miss in order to downgrade him from having a "great" year to a "very good" year, and from "very good" to "good"? If the pitcher has a 1.01 WHIP and an ERA of let's say, 2.80 but misses 5 starts is he no longer having a great year, and only a good year? What if he misses 8 starts?

 

I'm just trying to better understand your criteria.

 

 

Would Ben Sheets be on the top of your list to sign a long term contract? Even for that matter a 3 year deal?

 

If you do, you just got fired as a GM

 

I don't believe in signing most pitchers to long term deals(and by that, i mean more than 4 years).

[slappzilla]

What is the argument here?

 

Ben Sheets is a good pitcher. He's an ace.

 

He is also injury prone.

[berniebrewer4life]

What is the argument here?

 

Ben Sheets is a good pitcher. He's an ace.

 

He is also injury prone.

 

 

The argument is that because he was injury prone, he wasn't a good pitcher.

[slappzilla]

so Tulo and Hamilton (first two guys that came to mind pertaining to debate at hand) not good either?

[dlk9s]

Would Ben Sheets be on the top of your list to sign a long term contract? Even for that matter a 3 year deal?

 

If you do, you just got fired as a GM

The answer to that has nothing to do with how great of a pitcher he was when he was with the Brewers.

[TooLiveBrew]

Would Ben Sheets be on the top of your list to sign a long term contract? Even for that matter a 3 year deal?

 

If you do, you just got fired as a GM

Oh how I've missed these types of comments on Sheets

[MJLiverock]

[sarcasm]So clearly the Cardinals GM is terrible, signing injury prone guys like Carpenter and Wainwright. That idiot Cashman in NY has signed how many pitchers who got hurt? Idiot Epstien signed oft injured Josh Becket but I guess he redeemed himself by signing the workhorse that is John Lackey until he too got hurt this year. Teams should probably just stick to signing pitchers who will take a 1 year deal like Braden Looper.[/sarcasm]

[rluzinski]

The combined overall stats between Sheets and the replacement (s) won't look good. See guys I'm looking at this from a team perspective here not individual stats. I say he is not helping his TEAM by missing those starts. You can praise him for his career stats but he was not helping his team with the 3 straight years missing 10 plus games. But hey we should retire his number, he was great.

 

There is nothing novel about what you are proposing. The seasonal value of a particular performance is some kind of rate metric multiplied by duration. Then compare that to a baseline of your choice. That's exactly what the basic framework of WAR does, for instance. fWAR (Fangraphs) says Sheets has had 7 above average seasons. rWAR (Baseball Reference) says 6. I typically use rWAR when looking at career stats. How many "good" years has Sheets had? I don't even know what that means, so I am not going to argue against your 2 season claim. It's completely subjective.

[Team Hoyt]

Would Ben Sheets be on the top of your list to sign a long term contract? Even for that matter a 3 year deal?

 

If you do, you just got fired as a GM

The answer to that has nothing to do with how great of a pitcher he was when he was with the Brewers.

 

But it does. If you are trying to build a team that is going to win year after, you want consistent healthy pitching. I think all of you can agree that pitching is going to win championships. Maybe it was just bad timing with his injuries coming into his prime.

 

I will say this, you could make a case that when Ben Sheets is healthy you could argue he would make the list of the top 20 guys you would want to take the mound in a 1 game playoff in this era of 2000-present

[dlk9s]

Would Ben Sheets be on the top of your list to sign a long term contract? Even for that matter a 3 year deal?

 

If you do, you just got fired as a GM

The answer to that has nothing to do with how great of a pitcher he was when he was with the Brewers.

 

But it does.

http://i.imgur.com/hNYt5.gif

[Team Hoyt]

You couldn't put the whole quote in there?